Interviews Conducted by Robert J. Beck

You and your husband Paul Tobin co-created the book Banana

Sunday. Can you tell us what it is about?
 
It's about a girl named Kirby Steinberg who comes to a new school
with her three talking monkeys (one monkey and two apes, actually,
but I don't choose to be a stickler.) Kirby meets a cute boy who
confuses her with his flirtations, a school diva who angers her with
her bullying, and a new best friend, Nickels, who is the biggest
threat of all because of her curiosity about the monkeys' secret
origin. Meanwhile, the romantic spider monkey Knobby, the
super-intelligent orangutan Chuck, and the muddleheaded golden
gorilla Go-Go create mischief and generally cause Kirby all kinds of
grief.

What was it like collaborating with your husband?
 
I've been working with Paul since we first met and I started to be serious about drawing comics, back in the mid 1990's. He helped me develop as a storyteller and never let me get lazy or complacent; he'd point it out when I made bad decisions with my art, but he made sure I never wasted time looking back and redrawing stuff over and over. I really enjoy working with other people like Chris or Jeff Parker or Fred Van Lente, and I know he likes working with other artists, but Paul was my first writer and is my favorite to work with.

You have recently done a great cover for the Heroes Initiative, how did you doing this come about?
 
Thanks! The Hero Initiative, which provides emergency assistance to comics veterans in need, sends out these comics with special blank variant covers for artists to draw on, then they auction off the comics to raise funds. My studio-mates Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber were on the list of participating artists, so through them I was able to horn in on that sweet charity action! It's a cause I care a lot about, because like most people who work in creative fields, comics professionals often have no nest egg to fall back upon, nor adequate health insurance when things go really bad.

Are you working on anything currently you can tell us about?

I just finished a five-page story about Ms. Lion of the Pet Avengers which I also wrote! In fact, I wrote, penciled, inked, colored and lettered it all myself. It'll be available first online, and then I guess it'll be printed in the eventual Lockjaw & the Pet Avengers trade paperback. I have a story written by Paul in Fantastic Four Giant Size Adventures #1, which I think comes out on June 24. Later on down the road, Paul and I have an original graphic novel coming out sometime in the next year from Top Shelf called Gingerbread Girl. It's not like anything either of us have done before, so that's exciting.